A private cargo ship is now packed with Space Station trash. The ship, Cygnus, is headed for Earth's atmosphere, where it will burn up on Wednesday.<\/p>\n
The International Space Station has one less capsule and a lot less trash. <\/p>\n
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A commercial cargo ship ended its five-week visit Tuesday morning. NASA astronaut Michael Hopkins used the space station's big robot arm to release the capsule, called Cygnus, as the orbiting lab sailed 260 miles above the South Atlantic. <\/p>\n
Cygnus is filled with Space Station garbage and the trash-packed capsule will burn up Wednesday when it plunges through the atmosphere, over the Pacific. <\/p>\n
Orbital Sciences Corp. launched the Cygnus capsule last month from Virginia under a $1.9 billion contract with NASA. The Cygnus delivered 3,000 pounds of goods, including belated Christmas gifts for the six-man crew and hundreds of ants for a student experiment. <\/p>\n
The ants are still aboard the space station. They'll return to Earth aboard another company's cargo ship, the SpaceX Dragon. <\/p>\n
SpaceX or Space Exploration Technologies Corp., based in Southern California will launch its next Dragon from Cape Canaveral on March 16 with a fresh load of supplies. <\/p>\n
NASA is paying Orbital Sciences and SpaceX to keep the space station stocked. Russia, Japan and Europe also take turns making deliveries. <\/p>\n
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\nWhat does Space Station do with its trash?<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"